iPhone OS 3.x brought us beefed-up parental controls, giving parents finer-grained control over what apps their kids could purchase based on four standard age ratings. A side effect of Apple's move to have apps rated by age level meant that apps with racier content—essentially soft-core porn—could be approved for sale if was rated 17+. Educator and developer Fraser Speirs has discovered, however, that access is only restricted for purchasing, not browsing in the App Store, which is a real problem in school environments. The glitch has become a huge headache for Speirs' school, which plans to roll out iPod touches to every one of its 100 students next fall.

Speirs is known for his work for Connected Flow, which makes FlickrExport for Mac and Darkslide for iPhone. During the day, however, Speirs works at Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock, Scotland, where he teaches computer courses and manages the school's IT. The small, independent school has just 100 students in primary and secondary grades combined. Unable to fund a one-to-one notebook program, the school was able to purchase each student an iPod touch to supplement the strained resources provided by its Mac-based computer lab.

"The iPod touches can provide simple access to the Internet, as well as book readers, calculators, and flash card apps," Speirs told Ars. "There are tons of great, simple maths games for early years, and I can distribute PDF notes that can be stored on the devices. They are by no means a 100 percent replacement for a laptop, but I reckon it's about an 80 percent solution for 25 percent of the cost."

The problem that Speirs identified is that even though Parental Controls will limit app purchases for restricted apps, it does nothing to restrict browsing restricted apps via iTunes. Just accessing the "Lifestyle" category, for instance, will list dozens of "Amateur Swimsuit" apps, as well as "A Hidden Cam Thong." iTunes will happily display the product page and screenshots for apps such as "Movie of Sexy Japanese Girl," "Amateur Sohot Queens," or "Epic Boobs," replete with graphic text descriptions and NSFW—or school—screenshots.

The problem also affects the App Store app on the iPhone as well, though it does go one step further than iTunes in keeping the content protected. It will still display a restricted app's description and icon, but it won't show any screenshots.

Naturally, the school is responsible for blocking students' access to such material, which amounts to soft-core porn. Definitions of what constitutes porn varies widely, but most schools' policies would classify the material as inappropriate, and students would normally get in trouble if they were to bring it to the classroom. Speirs already has proxy filters in place to block questionable content while students browse the Web, which works just as well with Mobile Safari. But, filtering the App Store is impossible using those methods. So far, the only solution is to cut off access to the App Store altogether.

Naturally, there are some downsides to doing so. "I would have liked to allow the students to browse the App Store and personalise their devices a bit," Speirs told Ars. "Or, at the very least, see new apps and suggest them for deployment."

Shutting off App Store access also cuts off app syncing entirely, making deploying even a simple flash card app a challenge. "I need to manually de-restrict every single device before installing a new or updated app," Speirs said. After the app is installed on all 100 devices, they need to be restricted once again. With that many devices to manage, it could easily become a serious chore. If a larger school attempted a similar program, device management would be nigh impossible.

Speirs has filed bug reports with Apple concerning iTunes on the Mac and App Store on the iPhone. He has also filed a bug report asking that the App Store access restriction be decoupled from app syncing, which would ease app management. Beyond these simple fixes, though, Apple may also want to seriously consider examining how it can make a school IT admin's job easier with respect to device management (most of these needs extend into corporate enterprise as well). Apple's expected tablet is said to have features geared towards the education market, so there's some hope that Apple may already be looking at ways to make its mobile devices a better fit for schools.

This is not really softcore porn, its just women in underwear standing there. I think its minor enough to let it slide until the bug is plugged. This is especially true since I doubt there online porn filter catches all pictures of women in underwear.

This attitude -- we're going to advertise everything to you, even if you've clearly indicated you don't want it -- is especially annoying on the Apple TV. You can't use the device without running into explicit album covers, R-rated movie posters, and dirty song titles. Doesn't matter how the parental controls are set.

The worst you can see would be a picture of a woman standing around in underwear. What exactly is so bad about that? The text descriptions and titles are often worse than the pictures.

Plus, I find it hard to feel anything for this school when they're able to afford to buy all their students iPods. Most public schools can't even afford new textbooks. iTunes doesn't belong in a classroom anyway - it's purely for entertainment purposes. iTunes U doesn't really count.

I'm confused here. I have an iPod Touch, and when I enabled "Restrictions" and then turned off "Installing Apps" it got rid of the App Store icon altogether. Meaning I couldn't even browse the app store. Or is this story about something different?

It sounds reasonable to use the age restrictions to simply hide inappropriate applications in the store. There are so many free applications on the store that it would be a shame to restrict access to them all.

Most video rental shops (remember those?) had an "adult" room that you had to go into to browse pornographic titles. However, one of them in Boston simply put the adult titles on the top shelf all around the store. You could pretend you were browsing whatever section while slyly glancing up at the good stuff. I would be a lot more uncomfortable taking a child with me into this store to pick out movies.

This guy has some serious judgment issues... very serious: "They(Ipod Touch) are by no means a 100 percent replacement for a laptop, but I reckon it's about an 80 percent solution for 25 percent of the cost."

On what planet is a $200 ipod touch even remotely as capable as a $200 netbook? Let alone an $800 laptop.

In most European countries only certain indexed stuff (like hardcore porn or ultra-violent games/movies) are not allowed to be shown in areas to which minors have access. Minors e.g. see movies and games carrying a 16+ rating in each and every store. There is nothing in the App Store that does not exist in the average daily tabloid, far less actually. If this is the result from ultra-conservative or religious parents complaining, please ask them to move to a country where the laws match their beliefs.

Having somehow missed the evidence that proves exposure to sexual imagery has ever harmed anyone of any age anywhere, I'm forced to assume either that I didn't get the memo, or that most other people have gone stark raving mad with their own self involved narcissistic shame.

Originally posted by chimly:Let us pray for those children seriously injured, not unlike the orphans suffering on the wicked Isle of Haiti, that they may recover through the stern intervention of parents and nosy neighbors.

Oh these porn afflicted children will surely suffer. I say the Haitians got off lucky.

BTW, this reminds me of the 80's when you'd try to see the nudie bits on scrambled cable and occasionally see something.

They have the wrong person running their computer lab. They have picked a Mac Fanatic. Its only because the Touch is made by Apple that he is dreaming that it is a computer alternative. If it were made by MS it would be ridiculous to think that.

What they need to do is get someone else in, look at their budgets from the ground up, and what they are delivering for them. Also what sort of computer science education they are delivering with their entirely Mac Centric focus. Go to more sensible and cost effective systems, probably using open source or else MS educational discounts, probably using a terminal server approach, and you would not be presenting yourself with these ridiculous alternatives because you would not have eaten up the budget bowing in the direction of Cupertino.

One suspects that the real problem why all laptops in some guise from all suppliers are thought to be too expensive, is that Apple laptops are too expensive.

The least of the problems with this setup is that it allows students to look at girls in swimsuits or underwear. Put in a sensible system, and use some of the plethora of parental control software available for Windows or Linux.

The problem is the unspoken assumptions and beliefs on the part of the manager of the setup, and changing the way parental controls work in the App Store will not do anything to fix that.

To be fair, I think Ars made a poor choice of photo to illustrate this story.

Sure, noone cares about their kids basically seeing a woman in underwear. Hell, even nudity isn't really a huge problem, but some of this stuff is fairly explicitly sexual. I doubt many people would be that chuffed if their school were giving their 8 year old kids access to "Sexy Pasties Pro", which I had initially hoped was particularly delicious product shots of cornish pasties but turns out to be "our best boob app ... with over 200 girls wearing nothing but naughty nipple cover-ups", or indeed "Sex position" - "Imagine your partner's reaction when you spice up your sex life with new positions", or maybe "Hand bras" the "awesome colletion of only the most amazing boobs, covered only by bare hands!"

(That's just a quick sampling from the first page of the Lifestyle section of the app store right now.)

Yeah, none of this stuff is exactly scandalous, but we are talking about kids as young as 5 here...

Originally posted by JPan:Yeah because in a device that includes an internet browser the faulty parental controls for softcore applications are the biggest problem LOL

Presumably the device will connect to the Internet via the school's WiFi connection, which will have suitable net filtering software.

If the device is taken off-site, the school can legitimately say 'not our responsibility while off-site' - or plausibly they won't be allowed to take the things off-site, since they're school property.

Originally posted by mihoda:This guy has some serious judgment issues... very serious: "They(Ipod Touch) are by no means a 100 percent replacement for a laptop, but I reckon it's about an 80 percent solution for 25 percent of the cost."

On what planet is a $200 ipod touch even remotely as capable as a $200 netbook? Let alone an $800 laptop.

Yes there are additional admin costs... but not $600 worth.

My thoughts exactly. You could even buy a low end laptop for around $300 (I did). It should be plenty for browsing the internet, word processing and such.Clearly the problem is that they went all in the Macs for there computer labs (despite costing more) and now they're stuck.The CS teacher's Apple fanboyism ends up costing the students.

Damn kids these days have it too easy. We had to work hard to find porn when we were kids. Searching for our dad's hidden stash of mags. Only being friends with one kid because his dad had a massive collection of "jazz" mags.